Our long term goal is to replace our day job income with passive income before my health prevents me from working. I know from my Mom’s experience that qualifying for or relying on disability is incredibly tough or near impossible here in CA. Aside from that, I aim to do my best to make the most of what we can do while we can.
***
Dividend income. We received $887 in dividends from the stocks portfolio. Our YTD monthly average is $295.
Year 2, Day 162: We’re still cautious about in person school but we’re also well aware that unlike our friends across the country, our district has at least some of the most needed mitigation strategies in place: universal mask mandate, they claim to have updated all the ventilation and to have an air purifier in every room (the latter two I want to see with my own eyes before believing it).
Naturally, Republican Californians had to try to make this darkest timeline even worse with the ridiculous recall election. Newsom is not the best governor ever but at least we have mask mandates. Not a single one of the candidates on the ballot inspires anything but disdain or disgust.
*****
I’m on Day 4 of not getting good sleep. At least last night was just interrupted sleep but not as pain-riddled as the previous 3 days. I had finally escalated to the heavy duty pain meds and that helped enough so that when I slept, it was relatively decent. But not nearly enough. I can usually function on moderate sleep deprivation. It gets tougher when it hits high sleep deprivation like it has now. I took a long rest both Saturday and Sunday but clearly I need another rest today.
It makes me wonder if I should try caffeine but that’s not going to give me more energy. It’ll just stave off sleepiness, which isn’t the issue, so that doesn’t help anything. Right? That’s how caffeine works?
*****
Because just doing my own work at twice the speed anyone else would isn’t enough, I had staffers out today so I had to cover for them. I made a couple executive decisions: I’d take care of most of their stuff, within reason, most of my stuff, and bump the rest to tomorrow. And I’m taking a short rest today. I’m not going to kill myself for work. I’m not going to use up my last dregs of energy and then be a growling monster at my family because I’m clean out of patience. Priorities.
*****
Meanwhile, in Smolville, Smol Acrobat done lost their little infant sleeping mind. They were showing all the signs of sleepiness, including doing their yelling at me that they do when it’s naptime. I comply and go through the whole routine. Do they sleep? They do not. They holler for 55 minutes. We tried three times to resettle them, finally feeding them some more formula, before they finally passed out. I do not know what broke there but it was a whole lot of mess.
Year 2, Day 163: Boy, I thought the past few days were rough. They were. But then last night was the worst. I caught two hours of sleep, then was stuck awake for the next five because of painsomnia and anxiety. I’m guessing the fatigue is why I spent most of the work day (counted only as the time spent in front of the computer, not the time I was minding Smol) in a state of being poised for flight. I just wanted to run away screaming. Pandemic normal, right?
We had a lot of discussions about trusting people and how you decide to trust someone this month. I can’t remember how it started but the conversation continued when JB was reading the graphic novelization of CoCo. They wanted to know why Ernesto yelled “Security!” and what Miguel did wrong for Ernesto to call security to take him away – what was the justification? It was a great teaching example. We talked about when we trust someone: We observe their words and their actions, how they make decisions, whether they believe (as Ernesto clearly did) that the ends justify the means where the means are “sacrificing literally anyone else” and the ends are “so I get what I want when I want it”. We shouldn’t trust people who show us that they are willing to hurt people to get what they want, and a lot of times, people / abusers will hide who they truly are from the rest of us. Miguel didn’t do anything wrong but he made a mistake in trusting someone because he thought they were family, and family doesn’t mean the same thing to everyone. We talked about how Ernesto had power over Miguel, who was alone and too little to fight back, and power over Hector who didn’t know that his best friend was a sneaking slimeball, but he chose to hide that part of himself from his fans because he wanted something from them. Very classic abuser!
JB very quickly connected the dots to: “You trusted your dad and you didn’t know he was going to hurt you! And Auntie trusted her husband, who isn’t her husband anymore, because she didn’t think he was going to hurt her!”
Yep.
Yep. People hide the bad parts of themselves from some people, notably the people they aren’t abusing. They hide it from the people who they want something from. So we can be fooled sometimes, it happens. It’s not doing something wrong – it’s a mistake because you don’t have all the information or the experience to know to be more careful around that person but then you’ve got to do something with the information when you do have it.
Responsibility
Nicole and Maggie bestirred my brain cells to thinking about helping JB develop a habit of maintaining their own paper planner. I don’t know if they’re actually the right age developmentally but they do use our family calendars to see what is scheduled so I think it’s just another step from using what’s in front of their faces to developing the skill/habit of writing those things down for themselves. I should have started earlier in the summer, though, more fun things to add than school things probably make this more fun? Oh I don’t know. I started when I started!
Year 2, Day 155: Yesterday was such a bad day with JB that the funk has followed me into today. I just want to lay my head down and be left alone for hours. Naturally, I cannot. We have school drop-off, work, more work, Smol to take care of, more MORE work, Smol to settle down for a nap, work, school pick up, JB’s after school lessons that will stand in for some version of aftercare to schedule.
I don’t know if it’s tempting fate but I filled almost in the rest of the school year’s dates on our calendar for JB. Who knows if these dates will stand. But I will want to know them later and what better time to do that then when I’m stressed and looking for administrative mindless scutwork?
I did sort out their tutoring and Spanish scheduling too, so I was able to start booking those out for a few weeks. This gives me a (faux) sense of control over something. Look at me! Planning things!
*****
I finished our two direct aid projects for friends and did tell myself that I’m not allowed to pick up another project for at least 24 hours. Will I be able to do that? WE. SHALL. SEE.
*****
We donated to the Jewish Family & Community Services East Bay to support their refugee resettlement efforts. This situation in Afghanistan hits really close to home. Our family had to escape their homeland after the US withdrew their troops after the fall of Saigon. One uncle who worked with the CIA disappeared forever, leaving behind his wife and three kids. No one has seen or heard from him since 1975. Another uncle was thrown into jail for decades for fighting for the “wrong” side. Most of my family had to flee under cover of night, embarking on a dangerous journey they were lucky to survive.
People deserve a safe place to live and I think we have a moral responsibility to extend that safety (dubious though it may feel when I look around at how citizens of this country have behaved in recent years).
Year 2, Day 156: I am forcing myself to wait at least until tomorrow before starting up another project. I do have plenty of work to do, I just don’t want to do it and I am clearly using these projects to help me feel a tiny bit better about a world that I strongly resent and dislike.
I’m realizing that I’m simmering at a high amount of rage every day. I haven’t been in this emotional space for a long time and I didn’t realize how bad it had gotten until this weekend when JB and I had the worst most terrible-parenting interaction I’ve ever had and it’s finally sunk in that I’m so overtaxed, so filled with anger at the world, that I have lost every reservoir of patience.
I had to meet someone that a loved one has been seeing for a while and it was immediate red flags and I just want to yell nooooo but they won’t listen so there’s no point. Having been their near-daily support for years through similar bad situations, it was so hard to watch what appears to be them walking down the same path again. I’m also furious with some family because GET YOUR SHOT AUGH. The refugee situation in Afghanistan pushes some very personal buttons, as my family including my generation, were refugees after a war. (more…)
Year 2, Day 141: What a day. We had all kinds of cleaning up to do. PiC and JB worked on three loads of laundry, I worked on reconciling a bunch of bills, filing a tax amendment, contacting the school because two weeks out we still have zero information beyond “everyone will be required to mask”. The planner in me hates this school district. I cleared away some time critical work, and sent important personal emails.
Then as a soul cleanser, I tackled our next Lakota family’s list. I didn’t mean to dive in already but I spotted, buried in the requests, a mom with a newborn and no car seat. We had to get on that!
Naturally I then had to go on and take care of the rest of the family too while I was at it. It took a few hours to sort out an order that would actually ship to Pine Ridge. I completed half the categories of the list: car seat for baby and clothes for the older kids. I added some household things for mom because she didn’t ask for anything for herself and I’m sure that she could use a basic hygiene kit. I’m trying to remember what I’d wanted in those postpartum days. The other half of the list, baby clothes and school supplies for the older kids, will go out later this week.
Year 2, Day 142: Another heavy work day with exponential stress. Lots of scheduling conflicts and people having bad personal stuff going on which require accommodations and trying to make sure enough gears keep turning at partial staffing. The only good thing out of this moment is the timing is good to make a push for a staffing change I’ve been wanting for a long time that will help us long term.
I assigned the rest of the laundry to JB for the afternoon, they were allowed to take reading breaks as they wanted, and so by the early evening all the laundry was put away with minimal fuss.
I was happy to finish up the school supplies order for the kids and then while I organized a new basket to hold books for the kids and organized Smol’s clothes, I pulled out armloads of their outgrown clothes to ship a bundle for the new baby. I need to replenish my flat rate boxes stash!
BUMMER. The car seat I ordered yesterday from Target has been cancelled. They say there’s a problem with the shipping address, and they can’t charge my credit card. Um, since you have charged it 16 times today, and shipped 11 packages there already, I would say both those objections are bunk. I reordered it.
Year 2, Day 143: Would you believe that the second car seat has been cancelled?? I finally went to Amazon to order it because it’s a time critical item and they’re taking TWO WEEKS to ship it even with Prime. What is this nonsense? So amid my fight with the school district, my inbox, and my towering to do list at work, I am on chat with Target demanding an explanation for why on earth this item cannot be shipped. It’s really really annoying. (more…)
Year 2, Day 113: Well, I forgot today was Monday 16 times even though I put in about 6 hours of work today. Holiday weekends always throw me for a loop. We had a conference call lunch with family for funsies so that was one bit of relaxing we did, and then we also took everyone for a looooong walk later in the afternoon. I needed to try to walk off some back aches and that didn’t quite work as planned but it was still good to stretch my legs. I did not get out for a walk more than twice last week. That’s pretty bad and it was even more obvious by how much I huffed and puffed my way back up the hill.
*****
Some days I am starting to see a tiny bit of the more normal parent me peek out. Sometimes I have patience again, kind of like before the pandemic. Not a lot, and not for long but I thought that part of me had died, crawled out of the grave, gotten bludgeoned, and died again.
Year 2, Day 114: For once, my decision to go to bed instead of working late the night before worked out. Usually I lay there futilely trying to fall asleep, get frustrated, and then feel like it was all a wasted effort by 2 or 3 am.
This time, I still didn’t fall asleep when I wanted to but I did get enough rest that after Smol Acrobat started their 6 am round of thumping, babbling, and hawk cries, I was just about able to get up and prep their bottle. PiC changed and fed them while I took care of my toilette, and then he passed out with the baby happily remonstrating next to his prone body. Smol and I hung out for the next hour and a half, playing, walking the dog, eating again, me trying to work a little bit in two minute spurts.
*****
I’m covering for people on the team being out again this week, this is the fourth or fifth time in five weeks, because everyone’s doing some kind of travel now that CA is opened up again. I’m DROWNING in work and my brain can hardly keep up. Well, it will. But I hate this feeling of being behind on everything.
*****
We made a rookie mistake and miscalculated both how long it would take us to run two errands and underestimated how much formula to bring with us for those errands for Smol. So underfed and tired Smol was very unhappy. We skipped their last nap and put them straight to bed after feeding but it was still too little too late, they were up multiple times in the night just miserable. Sigh.
Year 2, Day 115: My body’s all out of whack this week for other reasons but that lack of sleep really loosens up my joints. This is not great. On top of a doubled workload, I also need to schedule two sets of activities and lessons for JB for the rest of the month so at some point. One teacher won’t be available for weekly lessons anymore and the other one isn’t teaching anymore so I have to pick a replacement. I’ve got to find the time for that. Thank goodness PiC is on lunch prep today.
My pain was so high by the end of the day, between sleep-deprivation fatigue, stress multiplying my aches, and overdoing the walk in the afternoon that when I got up from bed, having forgotten my bedside water, I could only hobble. Hello, geriatric me.
Year 2, Day 116: We were supposed to do pizza night last night! We forgot. My brain is maxed out. All I could think this morning was I hate work, I want to retire.
I ran a load of laundry last night, the dishwasher this morning, and the robot vacuum this afternoon. Thank goodness for robot helpers! JB suffered a great disappointment when an Auntie had to cancel their call this afternoon, they instead spent their afternoon doing a consolation puzzle (100-200 piece puzzles are too easy for them now, we need to level up. What’s next, 300?), reading, racing on NitroType, and watching the Hello Kitty and Friends Adventure shorts that I had picked out for their viewing. I really shouldn’t share so much Hello Kitty stuff with JB. Passing along my personal obsession to the next generation is Not Good for our pocketbooks. (But it’s so CUTE.)
Year 2, Day 117: Thinking of my CPA and how she still owes me a few amendments that would result in refunds and how I can’t pay her until she tells me how much I owe. I’d like to pay her. I already sent a reminder saying I’d like to pay her, please tell me how much but she just said she would get back to me. Still waiting….
*****
Smol woke up, and laid back down to nap several times over the course of an hour. I can’t tell if I should count that as awake time or asleep time for the purpose of calculating their next nap time!
*****
We’re starting to see school related information and it’s giving me whiplash. The CDC says vaccinated teachers and students don’t need to mask. I want to know why this country thinks I’ll believe anyone who is maskless without solid proof of vaccination given the behaviors we’ve seen to date. The tantrums, the lying, the people who spoiled vaccines, the person who was caught selling blank vaccine cards. And even if I wasn’t completely mistrustful of the general public, kids under 12 still can’t be vaccinated so are we going to only expect them to mask? Personally, though we’re both vaccinated, PiC and I stay masked to keep JB company. They have been really good about it but I know it helps with their compliance to have us masked. Our friends with under-12 do the same.
*****
We’ve been having medium range planning conversations about the next car. We need to decide 1. what we need 2. when we need it and 3. when what we need will be available. Ideally this purchase will be somewhere 2-5 years down the line, if we can push it out that far, because I want to save for this incrementally over a long time. Also because we aren’t convinced the technology is mature enough for what we’re looking for. We don’t want to get into a new tech money and time pit.
He’s done some initial research and for the size of hybrid vehicle we need for four humans plus an additional guest at times, a large dog, and luggage, we’re looking at $30-50k. That’s a staggering sum. The high end is almost laughable and it’s really truly unlikely we’d ever be willing to make that happen. That’s huge. HUGE. It’s far too large a proportion of our income.
Heck, the low end of the range is the total cost of what I’ve paid for the two cars I’ve purchased for myself in the past twenty years: one new and one used. I know that’s a meaningless stat but it’s still true. My first car served me well until I had to let my dad keep it ten years ago. I eventually gave it up permanently in the Going No Contact process. My second car is over 15 years old and I fully expected to hit 20 years in it. I’m not sure if it’ll be my car or the dog car that gets replaced but they’re both quite old and the maintenance costs are real.
:: How old are your vehicles? Do you have timelines for replacing them?
Year 2, Day 106: An unexpected boon of Smol’s early morning wakings is that if I can get up too, PiC and I have time to talk for a few minutes like adult humans with interests in the world and live together. This morning we talked about the photos of our dear recently deceased friend that I found over the weekend while doing data backup. We couldn’t decide at first the best way to share with their widow but landed on making a photo book. So that’ll be my thing this and next week.
*****
I read The Pout-Pout Fish (Bookshop, Amazon) to Smol. They’re not quite old enough to appreciate it yet but it nailed my feelings today. I feel sick (Blub), achy (Bluuuub), and tired. . . (Bluuuuuuuuub).
*****
PiC cooked all weekend and I’m so grateful to him.
*****
Smol slept through the night most nights last week but come Friday, that went out the window. They just had this burst of development and they had to wake up the first night because HANGRY! The second night because … I’m not sure why but just needed to be held and sung to for a few minutes. The third night was to babble and raspberry to themselves a few times. Weird, but funny!
One less funny side effect of the development is their mood swings. So many swings. Happy sad happy sad.
*****
There’s a chance we might have daycare in October so I inputted the cost into my spreadsheet for the last three months of the year. O_O This upended my delicately balanced cashflow and budget. Daycare is so expensive, even part-time. I don’t want to reduce our savings but we’re going to have to. Better to know now. At least I already funded our brokerage for our planned weekly investments for the next quarter. We’d sold some investments to shift our allocation so that helps soothe my nerves. (more…)
Year 2 of COVID in the Bay Area.